"The restaurant business has been a part of my life for a long time, and I anticipate it being a part of my life for a lot longer time."

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Two years after selling his interest in Daniel George restaurant in Mountain Brook, Birmingham chef George McMillan III is getting back in the business and opening a new eatery in Cahaba Heights.

McMillan’s new place, FoodBar, is tentatively set to open in late August in the former Suburban Grill location in the Heights Village retail center on Cahaba Heights Road.

“I knew when I got out of my old place that I eventually wanted to open a new restaurant, and I’ve just been really patient and taking my time finding the right place,” McMillan said in an interview at the restaurant Thursday.

“After looking at a bunch of empty places that were going to be a very large sum of investment dollars, I fell in love with this place -- just because it was, for the most part, kind of turn-key, and I think there was an underserviced market in this area”

FoodBar is taking over the former Suburban Grill location in the Heights Village shopping center. (Tamika Moore | tmoore@al.com)

McMillan is billing the FoodBar menu as “not pretentious, just delicious,” and it will feature such dishes as braised pork shoulder with house-made kimchi, Alabama catfish with field pea Hoppin’ John, and pan-seared Gulf flounder with squash croquettes.

“It will be in the style of the cuisine I did in my old restaurant, still working in that farm-to-table vein with local purveyors, as well as things that are seasonal, and showcasing all of the great seafood we get from the Gulf and working with local farmers who are doing farm-raised beef and pasture pork.”

Prices will be in the $8 to $15 range for appetizers and $18 to $28 for entrees, McMillan said.

The name FoodBar says everything you need to know about the restaurant and bar, he said.

“It kind of speaks to what it is,” McMillan said. “We are a little bit of a bar, and we are a little bit of good food, as well.”

“Like we do in the kitchen, we are taking as much time to focus on the ingredients in your drinks as we do the ingredients of your cuisine,” McMillan said.

The restaurant will seat about 70 guests in the dining area, with room for another 15 at the bar and about 25 on the covered patio outside.

The dining room is still under construction, but when it is finished, it will feature polished concrete floors and reclaimed wood tables, along with an S-shaped bar and banquette seating along one of the walls, McMillan said. Outside, he plans to grow herbs in planters along the sidewalk patio.

“That can be a little intimidating, whenever you are going into the spot of a business that failed previously,” McMillan said. “But the restaurant business has been a part of my life for a long time, and I anticipate it being a part of my life for a lot longer time. So I’m excited to be doing it here.”